Bead Town: Recycling Mardi Gras Beads … for a purpose

Sunday, 31 March (Part II)
Aviation arbor Famcamp — NAS JRB New Orleans — Belle Chasse, Louisiana
Temps: Lo 58F / Hi 80F (14C / 27C)

In my quest to photograph murals around New Orleans, I posted a note on the Trip Advisor New Orleans forum for tips on where I might find them.  One poster suggested that I might enjoy checking out an exhibit in Slidell.  He was right!

One of two over-sized murals at the Community Feed Store in downtown Slidell.
Featuring the NOLA skyline at night, The 42 x 8 feet (13 x 2½ m) mural contains 1.5 million beads.

A closer look at a portion of the mural featuring the NOLA skyline at night.

The links that the poster provided led me to several articles which gave interesting insight into a community art project undertaken by Stephan Wanger, a German-born, NOLA-based artist.  For Wanger, this project — which he has been working on for five years — is not just a means for recycling Mardi Gras beads.  It is also a means for teaching children about Louisiana … one Mardi Gras bead at a time.  As well, working on the murals teaches kids the value of persistence, something that seems to be a foreign concept to some in today’s society.

The articles describe Bead Town better than I can, so I will provide the links here for those interested in reading more about the project:

Article 1 — Article 2 — Article 3

Also, I uploaded an article from Slidell’s local magazine to my Google Drive.  If you’d like to read it, just click here.

At first I didn’t think we’d be able to squeeze in a visit to Slidell to see the murals.  When Mui told me the swamp tour (post here) he had picked out was just a few miles outside the town proper, however, I knew we just had to stop by and check them out.

I’m going to share several of the photographs I took at the gallery in this post, but if you’d like to see more and read the extensive captions, click this link for the series of photos I posted of the murals/artwork in my online gallery.  If you’re so inclined, it’s worth checking out the posted images in full size to appreciate the minute details.

Zapp's Cajun Craw-tators Potato Chips created by Randolph Matas Elementary School, Metairie, LA and Stephan Wanger. these kettle-fried chips have a Cajun crunch that packs all the flavor of Louisiana.	New Orleans’ Resilience is characterized by this woman who is walking away from a cemetery; the dates of Hurricane Katrina and the BP Horizon Oil Spill are inscribed on the gravestones.

A portion of Sanctuary of Alegria — Home of Happiness.
the mural showcases a view across the mighty Mississippi River towards downtown NOLA.
(record holder for size before the nighttime skyline mural was created.)

A portion of the Sanctuary of Alegria — Home of Happiness mural depicts the
Saint Louis Cathedral with the paddle wheeler Natchez in the foreground.

Center of the Universe
Priced at $14,000, this piece contains 49,000 beads.
It is a tribute to the influence the music of Louisiana has had on the rest of the world.

Tabasco Sauce — created by Randolph Matas Elementary School, Metairie and Stephan Wanger.
Tabasco products are made by the McIlhenny Company, founded in 1868 on Avery Island,
Louisiana, and still family-owned and operated on that very site.

My Beauty Underneath
Priced at $8,000, this piece contains 66,048 beads.
Mask or no mask, we are always challenged to see the beauty in every human.

The Titillations of New Orleans
Priced at $36,000, this piece contains over 200,000 beads.
It is in tribute to the French Quarter's Historic Pontalba Building.

Crawfish Boil — created by Randolph Matas Elementary School, Metairie and Stephan Wanger.
The traditional way for diners to eat crawfish is to "pinch the tails and suck the heads."

Walking to New Orleans — This $20,000 piece contains 75,000 beads.
The work shows Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav bouncing off the spirit
of New Orleans and Louisiana.  The notes in the song are the
beginning notes of "Walking to New Orleans" by Fats Domino.
The sale of this piece will benefit Tipitina's Foundation.

Louisiana State Flag
created by the Andrew H. Wilson Charter School of New Orleans and Stephan Wanger.
The pelican has been a symbol of Louisiana since the 1800s. The flag depicts a mother pelican
feeding blood from her chest to her babies; teaching our children the importance of sacrifice.

Work in progress — showing a great blue heron in flight as part of a swamp scene.

What a fantastic find this exhibit turned out to be!  Free, too.  And what a great way to recycle the zillions of Mardi Gras beads that are thrown from the floats during the pre-Lent festivities each year.  What is truly amazing is that Stephan Wanger is not a formally trained artist and was not involved in art until he began this project!  What a way to make an entrance!

City to Swamp

Sunday, 31 March (Part I)
Aviation arbor Famcamp — NAS JRB New Orleans — Belle Chasse, Louisiana
Temps: Lo 58F / Hi 80F (14C / 27C)

It’s raining; it’s pouring.  But it doesn’t really matter; we’re done for the day.  Besides, this was a day at home and we had no sightseeing plans to be rained out.  Işıl checked out of her hotel this morning, and spent the day with us here before Mui took her to the airport for her return flight to Turkey (via Chicago).  The storms moving through the area held off long enough for her plane to take off from NOLA; she’s already in the air on the next leg of her journey home.

We’ll be heading out tomorrow.  So, Mui spent the afternoon working on pre-departure chores.  We’re all set to leave the big city for a quiet state park in Mississippi.  But before we get there, a post to wrap up our visit to NOLA.

Friday, 29 March

This was our day to do the walking tour of the Garden District, a NOLA neighborhood that is best known for well-preserved mansions built by the wealthy in the period between 1832-1900.  Initially developed as a series of plantations, the land was later parceled off and sold.  From these parcels the original neighborhood was born with two large residential lots to a block.

Picking up Işıl from her hotel, we hopped on the St Charles Streetcar for the ride to the bottom end of the district.  Just past Lee Circle, our car blew a fuse, showering sparks everywhere.  After a short delay that brought streetcar traffic in either direction to a standstill, we boarded another car and completed our ride.

Starting our walk at Lafayette Cemetery, we continued from there to each of the 23 houses on the map, reading the brief descriptions included in the brochure.  Beautiful homes — from Italianate and Greek Revival mansions with 20+ rooms, to NOLA’s typical shotgun row houses; and Victorians with gingerbread trim.  What I liked the most was the “iron lace” decorating the balconies of many of the houses.

Lafayette Cemetery — laid out in 1833 by the original residents of the Garden District.  Within its
first 20 years, the cemetery was almost filled with those who succumbed to yellow fever.

I’ll share a few photos from some of the houses that charmed me.  If you’d like to see more and read the captions, visit my online gallery by clicking this link for the Garden District photo series.

2627 Coliseum Street: The gingerbread trim and elaborate iron work flatter this beautiful mansion, which is said to be owned by Sandra Bullock.

1331 Third Street: Decorated in iron lace, this home was built in 1850 for a prominent cotton merchant who was president of the Cotton Exchange and also served as the NOLA postmaster.

1331 Third Street – backyard of the home in the above photos.

2523 Prytania Street: Our Mother of Perpetual Help was once an active Catholic chapel.
Previous owners include Anne Rice (used it as a setting for her novel, Violin) and Nicholas Cage.

During our stroll through the Garden District, we took a break to have lunch.  We ended up at Gott Gourmet, where Işıl satisfied her craving for an American hot dog, and Mui and I enjoyed casual fare.  Mui ordered a muffaletta, a traditional New Orleans sandwich that originated amongst the immigrant Italian population of the city; and I had a shrimp BLT wrap.  The food was quite tasty; and our sidewalk table provided a spot from which to people-watch while we ate our lunch.

Muffaletta, Shrimp BLT Wrap, and Original Chicago Style Hot Dog.
[the two photos on the right are courtesy of Gott Gourmet’s website]

Though Gott Gourmet had something to satisfy each of us, it did not have dessert.  No problem.  I had spied a “sweet boutique” called Sucré across the street and already had plans to check it out.  It was a difficult decision, but we passed on the gelato and treated ourselves to tempting miniature cakes instead.

My Xocolat Sucré (far right) and Mui’s Tiffany (top left) were served on the same plate;
Işıl’s petit strawberry was plated separately.

With a stroll along the Riverwalk in the French Quarter next on our agenda, after dessert we headed to the Washington Street stop to catch the next streetcar.  The stop in the direction of Canal Street was crowded, so we took a car heading in the opposite direction for a few stops before getting off and boarding a car heading in the right direction.  The ride was crowded and noisy, and drained what little energy we had left.  By the time we arrived at Canal Street, we were all ready to call it quits.  Dropping off Işıl at her hotel, we walked to the parking lot where we had left the car and returned home to recharge our batteries.

Saturday, 30 March

A beautiful day of sunshine and blue skies greeted us for our last day of sightseeing. 

To show Işıl a different side of Louisiana, we started off with a boat tour of the Honey Island Swamp with Pearl River Eco-Tours, which we chose based on reviews on Trip Advisor, and the fact that this operator offers a small skiff experience instead of a noisy airboat ride.

Along the Canal near the launch site are abandoned boats like this one.                  
They landed here from 30 miles (48 km) away during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.             

As luck would have it, our tour was the first full one of the season, and we had 20 other people in our group.  A nice enough tour, but I was disappointed when the captain didn’t stop at some of the few wildlife sightings we had — a lone great blue heron, a Kingfisher that was posing nicely on a branch, and turtles sunning themselves on the logs.  On the plus side, Captain John did point out two pairs of nesting yellow-crowned night herons in the bayou, and we did see several young alligators in a canal not far from our launch site.  He also talked extensively about the eco-system through which he was taking us, and the people who choose to make their homes on the banks of bayous.  In the end, it was worth the $23/person price for the tour.

Again, I’m sharing a few photos and a video, but you can click this link to see more in the series of photos I posted online.

The captain estimated this gator to be about 5 feet (1.5 m) long; hence about five years old.

This pair of youngsters sunning themselves on the banks of the canal gave us our best sighting.

The Great Blue Heron was a drive-by sighting as the boat moved into one of the bayous.

A bayou is a slow-moving river.  As we traveled further into the swamp on one of the bayous …

… we learned that bald cypress trees hold onto their dry leaves until new buds
push them off the branches in the spring; and we saw a lot of bald cypress
knees peeking out of the shallow bayou.  Also …

… sightings of water moccasins like this one made me happy that our boat was covered.  And we …

… caught a glimpse of Heckle and Jeckle, a pair of nesting blue-crowned night herons,
who did not cooperate for a photo op.

I’ll wrap up our tour with a short ride through Honey Island Swamp.

26-second boat ride in the swamp.

Our plans included lunch at Café du Bon Temps, which describes itself as serving Cajun/Creole dishes from the Louisiana kitchen.  Maybe it does … but it was closed.  So, we postponed lunch until our return to NOLA and drove into Slidell to check out Bead Town.  That deserves its own post.  Moving along …

Back in NOLA, we parked the car and walked to the French Quarter for a lunch of red beans and rice at Café Maspero.  With a cruise ship in town on an already busy Saturday before Easter, there was a line to get in, but the wait wasn’t too bad.  Since Işıl had expressed an interest in having beignets after lunch, we ordered the appetizer portion of this Creole dish, which is traditionally served on Mondays.  Why?  Because Mondays were washday and this dish could simmer on the stove all day while the women were busy scrubbing clothes.

For beignets, we decided to go to Café Beignet, which is located inside the Musical Legends Park on Bourbon Street.  A three-piece jazz band provided entertainment as we enjoyed our hot beignets and beverages with less hub-bub than what we would have experienced at Café du Monde.

(You can tell I was drained from the bustling French Quarter — I didn’t take photos at either Café Maspero or Café Beignet, and had to resort to screen captures from their websites.)

Our return home ended up being a bit of an adventure.  After picking up the car, we headed out of the city as usual, only to find the traffic at our exit backed up considerably.  So, we drove back into the city and made our way to the ferry terminal at the bottom of Canal Street.  A short ride across the Mississippi put us back on the right track and soon we were home to enjoy a quiet evening.

Houmas House: The Sugar Palace

Thursday, 28 March
Aviation arbor Famcamp — NAS JRB New Orleans — Belle Chasse, Louisiana
Temps: Lo 44F / Hi 69F (7C / 21C)

A beautiful day of blue skies and sunshine, and rapidly warming temperatures, saw us heading out of town 72 miles (115 km) to Darrow, Louisiana.  Our destination: Houmas House … aka Burnside Plantation.

Louisiana doesn’t lack for old plantations and elegant mansions, and there are certainly ones that are closer to New Orleans than Houmas House.  So, why choose this one?  It wasn’t because it is described not only as the Sugar Palace, but also as the Crown Jewel of Louisiana’s River Road.  Rather, it was because the volunteer at the visitor center in Jackson Square described it as “touchable.”  Meaning, not only was it not stuffy, but photography was allowed inside the house as well as around the grounds.

After Houmas House was purchased by its current owner, Kevin Kelly,
the mansion was restored to the way it looked in 1840.

The 1½-hour drive to Houmas House was an easy one; mostly on I-10W.  We arrived in time for the 9:30a tour, but seeing that it was filled with school kids, we decided to wait an hour for the next tour.  That worked in our favor, actually.  The short video we watched while we waited for the appointed time gave us valuable insight into the history of the plantation.  (You can watch the same video here … there’s a nice reverse-animation showing how the house changed over the years and through different owners.)

Houmas House framed by the remaining eight live oak trees.  Originally, there were
24 of these majestic trees, but 16 of them were removed to accommodate a levy
that was built along the Mississippi River by the Corps of Engineers.

I’ll summarize the history of the property in bullet format (from info on the website):

• The land was originally owned by the Houmas Indians; they received the land through a grant.
• The Houmas traded the land to Messrs. Conway and Latil in the mid-1700s for $150 worth of goods.
• In 1810, General Wade Hampton, a Revolutionary War hero, bought the plantation and began adding on to the original house.
• In 1825, Hampton’s daughter and son-in-law took over the property; the mansion began to take today’s shape; land holdings were increased to 300,000 acres (1,214 km²).
• In 1857, John Burnside paid $1 million for the property; he increased the sugar production, making Houmas House the largest producer in the country; he saved the mansion from destruction during the Civil War by pretending to be British.
• Under the ownership of Burnside’s successor, the plantation produced 20 million pounds (9 million kg) of sugar.

As befitting the mansions of the period, the main hall is decorated with murals.  One of them features Princess Grace Kelly, the current owner’s dog.  The murals were painted by Craig Black, who has been tending the grounds of Houmas House for 35+ years.

• Houmas House fell into disrepair following the epic flood of the Mississippi River in 1927; the Great Depression followed.
• In 1940, the property was purchased by Dr. Crozat as a summer residence; he “Federalized the mansion’s Greek Revival look; his heirs opened the property to tourists.
• In 1963, the Bette Davis movie Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte was filmed on the property.
• In 2003, Kevin Kelly bought the property and restored the mansion to the way it looked in 1840.

Side view of the mansion with the passageway that separated the original building
(ochre walls) from the mansion; later converted to a carriageway.

Although we did the tour of the house after our self-guided walk of the grounds, I’m going to present the interior photos first.  We joined our group at the west garçonniére — essentially a house on old plantations where teen-aged boys lived separate from the family so that they could do “manly” things.

One of the two garçonniéres on the grounds is visible behind the hedge of greenery.

Our guide, Sara, was dressed in period attire and welcomed us warmly.  With a great sense of humor, she made the tour fun as well as informative.  In outlining the rules for the mansion tour, she explained that Mr. Kelly, the current owner, lives in the house.  She emphasized that we were not tourists, but guests in his home, and that we were welcome to touch and feel anything that caught our eye, and even sit on the furniture if we wished to do so.  And on that note, she opened the door, ushered us into the main hall, and started taking us around.

Fine Dining indeed!

Ladies’ Parlor
When none of the “guests” admitted to playing the piano, Sara took to the keys herself.

Gentlemen’s Smoking Room
Note the faux-finish painted moldings designed to add to the “masculine” feel
of the room; only by permission could a woman enter this room.

Odd to see a statuette featuring President Lincoln in a room of a southern plantation.
It’s not original to Houmas House.  The current owner purchased it for mere pennies
(so to speak).  He was attracted to the fine details of what he thought was a pewter
statue.  As it Turns out, it is the only surviving one of five sculpted by Gutzon Borglum,
the artist who carved Mount Rushmore.  Not only that, it is 65 pounds (30 kg) of pure silver.

At one time, this spiral staircase, which goes up to the second and third floors,
was free-standing, with banisters on both sides.

The rear hall, which started out as a rectangle, was made into an oval
by shortening the original room and adding curved walls at either end.

This room, at the top of the spiral staircase, is where Bette Davis stayed
while filming Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte at Houmas House.
The table between the chairs converts to a chair and desk.

View of the grounds and the surviving live oak trees from the second floor porch.

Two of the four bedrooms on the second floor.

the highchair in front of the bed on the left was easily converted into a stroller.

The bed on the right is what is known as a “rolling pin bed.”  Back in the day, mattresses were filled with Spanish moss.  After a couple of sleeps, these mattresses would become lumpy, so they
would take the rolling pin from the headboard and smooth out the moss every few days.

The master’s bedroom … literally.  The current owner’s bedroom is part of the tour!
Sara demonstrates how the steps up to the bed hid the chamber pot in days of yore.

Unusual for its time, the kitchen is attached to the mansion instead of being a separate building.

The kitchen was the last stop on the tour.  By this time, our tummies were reminding us that it was almost noon.  Mui had planned that we would have lunch at Café Burnside.  A few steps took us to the casual eatery, which is located on the grounds of Houmas House.  Three thumbs up for the food; the setting could use a little work … something more in step with the ambiance of the property perhaps.

Clockwise from top left:

Catfish Wade Hampton — blackened fillet of catfish atop Louisiana purple and
tasso rice pilaf, smothered in crawfish étoufée

Louisiana Seafood Pasta — crawfish and gulf shrimp sautéed and served with penne pasta
tossed in Creole tomato cream sauce

Lump Crab and Mango Cake Salad — crispy sautéed, with chipotle remoulade sauce;
served with a bed of organic greens tossed in Steen’s cane syrup balsamic vinegar

Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Coulis

We wrapped up our visit with another stroll through the grounds, enjoying the fountains, the colorful flowers, the birds flitting about and chirping in the trees, the parrot mimicking sounds, and the statues and quirky art placed all around the gardens.

If you can see the rainbow in the fountain, maybe you can find the pot of gold at its end.

Two to Travel provide perspective for the size of this 600 year old live oak.

A variety of orchids add color to the gardens.

Visit the Secret Garden to see the quirky art hidden in nooks and crannies.

Our first glimpse of the grounds of Houmas House is also our last glimpse before we leave.

We left Houmas House very pleased with our visit.  It was most definitely worth the $20 pp admission and the three-hour roundtrip drive.  We could have visited a grander mansion perhaps, but the “touchability” factor made this tour a winner for us.

P.S.  For all you dog lovers out there …

The Royal Wedding of Princess Grace Kelly and King Sam!

I borrowed this photo from the Houmas House website; click here to see more pictures of the “royal wedding.”